


goodbye, raskolnikov

by orphan_account



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Oneshot, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 14:17:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7511563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connor and Michaela succeed in going to the police and confessing everything in hello, raskolnikov.</p>
<p>What happens next?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Just a short fic exploring Wes and Laurel's trial. I do not live in the US, and have no idea how courts over there work, I'm just drawing off my addiction to US legal dramas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	goodbye, raskolnikov

“Look, you were right. Everything we did that night is defensible. Rebecca went to the house alone. When he attacked her, we were simply defending her, and after, we were suffering from PTSD.”

“What about Aiden?”

“I've reinvented myself before. I can do it again. I'll change my name. I'll write crime fiction or be a housewife. Okay, not a housewife, but if there's one thing I know how to be, it's _smart._ ”

“Okay. Okay, we’re doing this. Do we... do you think we need her too?”

A pause. “No. She and Wes are too close. She’d tell him, and he’d tell Annalise and we’d go down. It’s better if it’s the two of us.”

“Right. Not telling her, but... we don’t need to pin it all on her. She was like us, just defending herself. It was them two that did it, really.”

“Yeah. Let’s not try and outnumber ourselves. When shall we do it? Tonight?”

“Sooner the better. They’ll be more lenient.”

“Okay.”

.

They refuse to speak to anyone but Detectives Amos and Bryce. They were a good team, and fair, and Connor let Michaela do the talking, because boy, did that girl know how to talk.

“Mr Walsh, Miss Pratt... you don’t need to answer anymore questions.”

“We know,” Michaela says in that honey smooth, charismatic, listen-to-me voice that sounds like it should belong to somebody in a commercial, “but we need to talk to you. Alone.”

The detectives are not new to this game. Something has broken, the guilt has gotten too much, the fear of getting caught is swallowing them whole. It might be only a small shard of the puzzle, it might be the whole damn box. But they know better than to send them away, and give them time to think better of it.

“Come in,” Bryce says, opening her office door. Offices work better than interrogation rooms with friendly witnesses. They don’t feel like they’re on trial.

It works.

.

“Sam Keating did not flee,” DA Parks says in court the next day at a hearing adjourned to try and find Lila Stanguard’s murderer.

Annalise frowns, and rises. “Do you have new information?” she asks, already planning on reaming out Bonnie and Frank for missing something they shouldn’t have.

“Yes,” the DA says shortly, and all but waltzes up to the judge’s bench where she lays out two full confessions, typed up, annotated and italicized. “He was murdered, your honour, and I have two people willing to testify to it in exchange for a deal which they have accepted.”

“Murdered?” Annalise says, trying to show nothing but shock. Something has gone wrong. She looks briefly at Wes, and although he tries to hide it, his face is a mask of horror.

Rebecca isn’t there, Annalise realizes. Why would she be? Her trial was over. She would be at home. She’d hear the news.

She’d run, if she was smart enough and cruel enough.

“By Wesley Gibbins and Rebecca Sutter,” Parks announces, and Wes stiffens. “With Laurel Castillo as an accomplice.”

The courtroom descends into chaos.

.

“Please state your name for the court’s records.”

“Wes Gibbins.”

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

“I do.”

.

“You won’t go down for this,” Annalise tells Wes, “I won’t let you.”

“It’s done.” He says. “I killed him. I deserve prison for that.”

“No. Wes, you’re the Puppy. Remember? You need to win over the jury. Wes, please-”

“This isn’t your case,” Wes reminds her, “please leave.”

.

“Mr Gibbins, did you go to Sam Keating’s house planning to kill him?” The reporters swarm like hyenas over a dead gazelle, “Did you and Miss Sutter plan it together?” “Did your employer, Ms Keating, have any knowledge of her husband’s murder?” “How will you plead in tomorrow’s trial?” “Do you have any idea of Miss Sutter’s whereabouts?” “Do you think you were used by Miss Sutter as a weapon?”

.

“How do you plead?”

“Guilty.”

.

“In your own words, Miss Castillo, please tell the court the events of the night of Sam Keating’s death.”

Her family is an honour guard in the back row, Mexican-Americans with dark eyes, flash watches and gun bulges. Laurel has the best attorney money can buy, and by extension, so does Wes. She managed to convince her father to extend his protection to Wes too, because if he went down, so did she.

(“The boy confessed, Laurel! He has made his bed.”

“But it’s not like they say it is, papa. He was defending her. He doesn’t deserve to go to prison for the rest of his life for stopping somebody trying to kill somebody else, who had already murdered one girl.”

“Please, papa. If we let them write the story wrong, my account gets tarnished. Please. I will come back home after this. I’ll marry a nice boy and do what I’m told. Please.”

“Oh, mi pequeña... you will never do what you’re told. But I’ll get the boy a lawyer anyway.”

“Gracias, papa. Gracias.”)

“Me, Connor and Wes had organized a study group. We met at Wes’s, but he and Rebecca had just had a fight and we left right away really, because he knew she went to the Keating house, to get proof that Sam had killed Lila from his laptop. Whilst we were on the way there, Michaela phoned... she’d been waiting for Annalise, but only Sam was in, and then Rebecca was there and she told Michaela to phone Wes before locking herself in a room with the laptop. We got there, and we were gonna walk out with the memory stick with Sam’s phone locations on, but he sprung at her when we opened the door.

“He attacked me when I tried to defend Rebecca, Michaela tried to protect me but she pushed him off the top of the stairs. We all thought he was dead. Michaela was going into meltdown, we were trying to get a plan together when he... he got up, and we all turned to see him strangling Rebecca. We panicked... we didn’t want to touch him after the scare from before, but we had to save her. Wes just... reacted first. He hit her over the head with the trophy, and... killed him. But he saved Rebecca’s life. He was defending his girlfriend.”

“And after that?”

“Asher came by the house. We all were quiet until he went away. We rolled up the body in the hall carpet and carried it out. We bumped into a security guard, but Michaela lied to him and managed to convince him that Professor Keating had asked us to put it on the bonfire. We went to the woods, whilst Wes took Rebecca to a hotel. Wes returned, with the trophy. He’d gone to the house to retrieve it. Then we went to a convenience store, got gasoline, burner phones... some other stuff so it didn’t seem too obvious what we were buying. We burnt the body. We cut up the bones. Put ‘em in bin bags. Went to the bonfire and took a ton of pictures as an alibi. Put them in a trash can, and went home.

“The next morning, we were called into the office, and Professor Keating told us that she and Sam had had a huge argument the night before, which ended with her telling him she’d identify him as the father to Lila’s baby, and her murderer. She said she thought Sam had fled. It was... lucky. If me and Wes and Rebecca, when you find her, go down for this, then they should too.” She gave Michaela and Connor a look of pure acid, “they were there. Michaela pushed him off the stairs, for Christ’s sake. They both took part in the burning, the cutting up, the disposal, the bonfire alibi. They aren’t innocent in this.”

“Thank you, Miss Castillo.”

.

“Was Miss Sutter’s life in immediate danger, when you killed Sam Keating?”

“Yes.” Wes answered dully, “he had his hands around her throat, and was choking her to death. We already suspected he had killed Lila, through the exact same method. I thought she’d die if I didn’t do something. So I did something.”

“Mr Gibbins, may I ask a personal question?” Without waiting for a response, the defence attorney carried on, “Did you love Miss Sutter?”

“I do, yes.”

“You do? Even after she left you here, to face these charges alone, after you saved her life? After she led you into that house, even asking you to come in via Miss Pratt?”

“She... I...”

“I propose, Mr Gibbins, that you were set up. That Miss Sutter knew that you’d follow her when she went to get the laptop information, that she knew you loved her and would defend her, and she played on your affections. You killed him, but in defence of Miss Sutter’s life.”

This had not been in the prep questions. Annalise must have gotten to his lawyer. He tried to feel angry, but all he felt was resignation. It wouldn’t do anything.

“No... I mean... yes, I did kill him because he was trying to kill her, but she couldn’t have planned that, she’s not like that-”

“Couldn’t she?” the attorney turns to the jury, “Somebody you love is in danger, and begs for you to come and help them. You do, and after a huge burst of adrenaline, that person is being attacked, in a manner that could prove fatal, by somebody who you know has killed before? If you can say you wouldn’t do as Mr Gibbins did, then you are a stronger person than I.”

Muttering in the jury. The prosecution swears under his breath, and scratches out an argument.

.

“Has the jury come to a decision?”

“We have, your honour. We have found Laurel Castillo innocent of murder, but guilty of being complicit to a crime. For this she will serve a year of house arrest.”

Laurel’s father smiles.

“Rebecca Sutter was not present at this trial, so until she is found we cannot put her on trial. However, we feel that she was in a large part responsible for the events of that night, and therefore, we have decided unanimously to find Mr Gibbins guilty of manslaughter.”

Wes chokes on air. He had been hoping for second degree murder, at _best._ First degree was expected. But manslaughter? That was... that was...

“We believe,” the jury spokesperson continued, looking at Wes with kind eyes, “that he did what any of us would do in the same position and found it impossible to call it murder when it was done in defence of another person. As such, he is being charged with seven years in prison, with possibility of early release for good behaviour.”

Wes couldn’t help it. He put his head in his hands, and cried. Laurel put her arms around him, and stroked his hair. From the back of the room, Annalise Keating stood and walked out the door, grinning.

.


End file.
